Consumer interest in multimedia entertainment has expanded. Computer systems can be used to enhance a multimedia experience to a consumer. Computer systems can include communications interfaces to receive and process multimedia data from a network, such as the Internet, or compact disk (CD) or digital video disk (DVD) drives to playback video to the consumer. Computer systems can include television tuner cards to receive analog multimedia data. By playing back video within a computer system, windows used to present video within an operating system can be resized to match different aspect ratios associated with the video data. Similarly, multimedia data can be stored in the computer system for future playback in the aspect ratio the video is to be displayed.
Analog multimedia data, such as associated with analog television signals, is generally presented at a standard television aspect ratio, such as 4:3. Video having a different aspect ratio than the standard television aspect ratio is presented in an alternate format to accommodate for the standard aspect ratio, such as in the letterboxed format. In letterboxed format, the original video is provided at the standard aspect ratio, having the actual video content provided in its native aspect ratio with black bars above and below the video content to make up the standard aspect ratio. Black bars can also be provided on the left and right of the video content, depending on the aspect ratio of the video content. As the analog multimedia data is provided at 4:3 with black bars, the letterboxed video is played back with the black bars even in computer systems. The black bars must be processed with the video content and, when the video content is encoded and stored in memory, the black bars are also encoded and stored.
From the above discussion, it should be apparent that an improved method of handling letterboxed video data is needed.